M.K DeSantis, Pegasus Technical Services for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Series: Drinking Water Quality

Drinking water quality varies across in Wisconsin. In communities with public utilities, drinking water is subject to disparate levels of treatment depending on local needs and budget concerns. Nearly one million households get their water from private wells, which depend on property owners for monitoring and treatment. Across the state, many natural processes and human activities can introduce pathogens and chemical contaminants into water supplies. Wherever their drinking water comes from, Wisconsinites can use various resources to better understand and improve its quality.
 
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Per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals, better known as PFAS, can contaminate groundwater and pose health risks to people. Multiple Wisconsin municipalities are considering how to deal with PFAS, and Wisconsin DNR Sec.-Designee Preston Cole discusses the state's response to the issue.
The city of Madison's water quality manager, Joe Grande, voluntarily tested for PFAS chemicals in public water wells that aren't regulated. Grande discusses what is known and remains unknown about these pollutants.
Sometimes pollution is dramatic, like aerial footage of a 2011 coal ash pond collapse that sent toxic contents onto the beach and into Lake Michigan in Oak Creek, just south of Milwaukee.
The quality of drinking water resources is increasingly an area of focus among Wisconsin's political leaders. Their efforts, in turn, are generating significant interest around the state.
A study of drinking water quality in the southwestern region of the state is finding contamination beyond safe limits in two-fifths of private wells. Wisconsin Geological & Natural History Survey director Ken Bradbury discusses what its research is uncovering.
When longtime city of Milwaukee Health Commissioner Bevan Baker resigned on Jan. 12, it brought renewed attention to the city's broader struggle to address the problem of lead poisoning.
A analysis released in January 2019 shows more than 40 percent of private wells in southwestern Wisconsin failed to meet drinking water standards. Meanwhile, rules implemented in the summer of 2018 attempt to curb groundwater contamination in other parts of the state.
Wisconsin is proud of its water, including the stuff that comes out of the tap. Every year, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources releases an annual report about how the state's public water systems are doing.
Local governments across Wisconsin face an open question of how they'll pay for ongoing lead pipe replacement efforts.
Wisconsin's municipal drinking-water systems have tens of thousands of lead pipes in communities around the state, and there is growing pressure to get rid of them.